Berlin, 12 April 2012 Berlin tourism has continued its significant upward trend since the beginning of this year. 665,167 guests travelled to the German capital in February (+13 percent, variation versus prior year) and spent 1,427,746 nights (+ 14.5 percent) there. This was announced today by the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office.

The Berlinale attracted an increasing number of international visitors to Berlin. Their number rose by 12.9 percent to 242,385. The German capital was a particularly attractive destination for visitors from Russia (+ 20.2 percent), Austria (+ 20.2 percent) and Switzerland (+ 24.8 percent). Enormous growth rates were recorded in February for guests from the Arab Gulf States (+ 77.1 percent), Turkey (+ 65 percent) as well as from Eastern Europe (Slovak Republic + 43.1 percent, Ukraine + 58.5 percent, Estonia + 41.9 percent, Latvia + 46 percent).

The Berlin convention business had a particularly strong impact on the number of national guests in February 2012. The German Cancer Congress had, for instance, 7,000 participants and a financial convention had 4,000 participants. Altogether, 442,782 German guests (+ 13 percent) came to Berlin. They accounted for 819.345 room nights

(+ 14.8 percent).

In February 757 accommodation providers made 121,074 beds available to the visitors to the German capital (+ 4.7 percent). The average duration of stay in the film and convention metropolis was 2.1 days.

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